1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an aiming improvement device for attaching to glasses worn by a shooter, and more particularly, the present invention relates to an aiming improvement device for attaching to glasses having a pair of lenses and a pair of arms and worn by a shooter having a dominant eye with an optical axis and a non-dominant eye and for maximizing depth of field of the shooter, preserving depth perception and binocular vision of the shooter, and eliminating peripheral vision of the shooter.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As shown in FIG. 1, which is a diagrammatic side elevational view of an image focusing behind the retina of an eye, as we age, the corneas 10, i.e., lens, of our eyes 12 lose some of their ability to focus causing images 14, that in younger years focused on the retina 16, to now focus behind the retina 16.
We can easily see distant objects, but close objects are out of focus. The common solution is reading glasses. For shooters, however, reading glasses bring cross hairs and iron sights into focus, but the target blurs and red dots tend to lose their shape.
Our eyes do not see everything in sharp focus. There is a zone that extends from the closest point of acceptable sharpness to the most distant. This zone is known as the depth of field.
Photographers have used depth of field manipulation for a long time. When you see a photograph that has a sharp object, but an unclear background, most likely it was taken with a wide aperture of F 1.4. If that same image was taken using a small aperture of F 22, the subject and background would be sharp.
Further, in most, if not all cases, if an individual is born right handed, the right eye will be dominant, and if born left handed, the left eye will be dominant. In many cases, as soon as left handedness is observed in an infant, the parents will influence the child to use the right hand to conform to the practice of the majority of the population. Thus, a substantial number of individuals who appear to be right handed at maturity are innately left handed. Forcibly changing handedness, however, does not produce a corresponding change in eye dominance, so that there are a substantial number of individuals who are cross-dominant. This can be disadvantageous when attempting to perform a function that permits use of only one eye, such as aiming a weapon or looking into a monocular optical instrument. When aiming commonly used weapons such as pistols, shotguns, and rifles, the shooter attempts to set the rear and front sights and the target point in alignment. Most rifles and shotguns are designed for use by right handed shooters, who will rest the butt of the gun stock against their right shoulder and place their right eye behind the rear sight, with the intention of using the right eye exclusively to align the front and rear sights and the target. If the shooter is left eye dominant, the brain influences the left eye to become involved in the sighting and inaccuracy in aiming results. To alleviate this problem to the extent possible, it is common practice for shooters to close the dominant left eye which, of course, results in the brain dictating that the right eye will take control. It is known, particularly among competitive shooters, that shooting with one eye closed has an adverse effect on accuracy. It results in loss of binocular vision, peripheral vision, and depth perception. Loss of any one of these qualities will adversely affect the accuracy of trap shooters, target shooters, or hunters. It is especially important for trap shooters to maintain peripheral vision and depth perception since a shot is fired when the moving clay pigeon or target comes into sight. These three qualities, however, should be preserved in any kind of shooting with a gun or bow and arrow.
Competitive pistol shooters, who shoot at stationary targets, are seriously handicapped by cross-dominance between eyes and hands. The competitive pistol shooter usually holds the pistol out with two arms extended at eye level. Even if the pistol shooter keeps both eyes open while aiming as is desirable, unconsciously, the sight and barrel of the pistol will be turned slightly as a result of the burden of alignment being accepted primarily by the dominant eye. Shooting accuracy, therefore, suffers.
It has also been established that closing one eye while letting the other do the work has adverse physiological effects. The capillary bed that supplies the retina tissue to which the optic nerve connects is beneath the retina so light does not have to pass through blood. When one eye is closed voluntarily or otherwise for a short time, the brain brings about events that result in reduced blood flow to both eyes and this reduces visual acuity of the eye that is open and doing the work. This is another good reason for keeping both eyes open while aiming.
Many individuals among the population, including shooters, are not aware that their eyes and hands are cross-dominant because they have not become aware that it is easy to make the determination. As is known, a test for which eye is dominant simply involves holding a finger or a pencil, for example, upright with the arm fully extended and with both eyes aligning the pencil with a distant object. Then, the right eye can be closed. If, when the right eye is closed the pencil appears to shift out of alignment with the distant object, it was the right eye that was doing most of the work all the time and there is right eye dominance. The other part of the test is to close the left eye. If there is right eye dominance, then there will be no shift. Conversely, if the individual closes the left eye and a shift occurs, it is an indication of left eye dominance. For additional confirmation, the right eye is closed and there will be no shift if there is left eye dominance.
Some shooters have recognized that they have cross-dominance and they attempt to take measures to mitigate the disadvantage. Some shooters, who are left eye dominant, have obtained special weapons, or particularly, had a rifle or shotgun stock made that is adaptable for shooting on the left side so that the left dominant eye can be used. Some left eye dominant shooters will shoot with the butt of the gun stock on the right shoulder and use the weaker or non-dominant right eye for aiming while the left eye is covered with a black patch, or if glasses are used, opaque tape is applied to the left lens. When the lens is covered or the eye is completely overlayered with a patch, it is as if one is shooting with the non-dominant eye closed in which case binocular vision, depth perception, and peripheral vision are lost. In any case, it has been shown that better shooting accuracy is obtained when a shooter masters keeping both eyes open, even if there is no cross-dominance between the eyes and hands. A right eye dominant shooter, for instance, who correctly aims with the right eye and does not need to overcome a problem of cross-dominance, is better off if both eyes are kept open when shooting. Some shooters, who have no cross-dominance, still cannot keep both eyes open because they experience double vision if they do so while aiming. They usually solve this problem by closing the non-dominant eye anyway.
Numerous innovations for aiming improvement devices have been provided in the prior art that will be discussed infra. Even though these innovations may be suitable for the specific individual purposes to which they address, they each differ in structure and/or operation and/or purpose from the present invention, in that they do not teach an aiming improvement device for attaching to glasses having a pair of lenses and a pair of arms and worn by a shooter having a dominant eye with an optical axis and a non-dominant eye and for maximizing depth of field of the shooter, preserving depth perception and binocular vision of the shooter, and eliminating peripheral vision of the shooter.
FOR EXAMPLE, U.S. Pat. No. 4,761,196 issued to Brown et al. on Aug. 2, 1988 teaches a thin flexible disk of opaque material and at least one flexible disk made of a translucent plastic material that is provided in a kit. A shooter aims a weapon, such as a rifle, in the normal fashion with the optical axis of one eye aligned with the rear and front sights on the rifle. While the rifle is being aimed, the other eye, that is, the eye which is not consciously doing any aiming, has the opaque disk applied to the lens of the shooter's glasses. The opaque disk is then moved around until it is aligned with the pupil and on the optical axis of the other eye. A translucent disk is then applied coincidentally with the opaque disk after which the tentatively adhered opaque disk is removed. The shooter then proceeds to shoot with the center of vision of the other eye blanked out, but with diffuse light coming through the translucent disk so the brain governs the other eye as if the eye were operating under ordinary conditions in which case depth perception, peripheral vision, and binocular vision are preserved as is normally the case when an object is sighted with two unoccluded eyes.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE, U.S. Pat. No. 5,305,027 issued to Patterson on Apr. 19, 1994 teaches a vision training device that is useful for improving hand-eye coordination activities and takes the form of eye wear having two red colored, translucent lenses. Each lens contains a clear target sight positioned and dimensioned to allow a trainee to focus the image of an object onto the focal vision areas of his eyes through the apertures, while simultaneously stimulating the red vision of the eye by exposure to light in the red spectrum.
STILL ANOTHER EXAMPLE, U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,501 issued to Aloi et al. on Aug. 22, 1995 teaches a golf sighting spectacle device to be worn by a golfer to aid in sighting the golf ball during a swing. The sighting device is a spectacle including lenses having neutral density filters transmitting 1.5 percent of the visible light and being opaque in the ultraviolet. The sighting device, for the right handed golfer, has a ⅛ inch diameter aperture in the left eyepiece located to the left and below the optical center of the eyepiece. In the version for the left handed golfer, the aperture is in the mirror image of the lens, being to the right and below the optical center, instead of being to the left and below the optical center of the eyepiece.
YET ANOTHER EXAMPLE, U.S. Pat. No. 5,541,675 issued to Hickey on Jul. 30, 1996 teaches a pair of eyeglasses which can be used in conjunction with shooting. The glasses enable a shooter to take proper aim at a target without having to close one eye. In the broadest context, the pair of eyeglasses has one of the lenses opaque and the other lens opaque, with the exception of a small aperture. The aperture is the sighting aperture which enables the shooter to focus on his or her target.
It is apparent that numerous innovations for aiming improvement devices have been provided in the prior art that are adapted to be used. Furthermore, even though these innovations may be suitable for the specific individual purposes to which they address, they would not be suitable for the purposes of the present invention as heretofore described, that is, an aiming improvement device for attaching to glasses having a pair of lenses and a pair of arms and worn by a shooter having a dominant eye with an optical axis and a non-dominant eye and for maximizing depth of field of the shooter, preserving depth perception and binocular vision of the shooter, and eliminating peripheral vision of the shooter.